Constraints to Utilization of Poultry Production Technology among Farmers in Oyo State, Nigeria

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1 Kamla-Raj 2008 J. Hum. Ecol., 24(4): (2008) Constraints to Utilization of Poultry Production Technology among Farmers in Oyo State, Nigeria O.A. Olaniyi, I.O. Adesiyan and R. A. Ayoade Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso. Oyo State. Nigeria KEYWORDS Constraints. Poultry production. Technology and Utilization ABSTRACT The study examined the constraints to utilization of poultry production technology in Oyo State, Nigeria. Primary data were collected using a set of structured and validated interview schedule from 120 poultry farmers who were selected using multistage sampling techniques from four Local Government Areas of Oyo State, Nigeria. Data analysis was carried out using frequency counts, percentages and Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC). The result of the analysis showed that the major constraint to utilization of poultry production technology was access to capital and inadequate extension contact. Empirically, Age, awareness and education shows negative and relationship with constraints to utilization while source of information had positive and significant relationship with constraints to utilization of poultry production technology. The major recommendation that emanated from the study are: provision of credit facilities to the farmers by the government through the banks and making inputs such as vaccines available to the farmers at a subsidized rate. INTRODUCTION In Nigeria, food production has not increased at the rate that can meet the increasing population. While the food production increases at the rate of 2.5%, food demand increase at a rate more than 3.5% due to the high rate of population growth of 2.8% (FOS, 1996). Therefore, poultry represents an appropriate system to feed the fast growing population and also play an important role in household food security. Although, there are 800 million people that are suffering from malnutrition all over the world due to inadequate animal protein in the diet of a large proportion of the population especially in the rural areas which constitute 70% of Nigeria population (FAO, 1993; Ojo, 2003). Animal protein is essential in human nutrition because of its biological significance. Poultry and poultry products such as poultry meat and eggs are important foods for improving nutritional and health status particularly for at risk populations; like children, pregnant women and weaken persons. In realization of the importance of animal protein, the various governments in Nigeria have been pursuing programmes at various levels Federal, State and Local Government to boost mass production of livestock products to ensure the attainment of FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) recommendation of 35g/input of animal protein per day. Some of these programmes include Farm settlement scheme, Agricultural Development Projects (ADP s) Microcredit scheme for livestock production and lately the United Nation Development Programme (UNDP) with the concern of establishment of poultry production programme at community level in Nigeria. Extension and research are well-organized systems that design and disseminate technological innovations to farmers. Despite all the technological innovation transfer, the wide gap between levels of production which research contends is attainable and that which farmers achieve suggests a missing link (Oladele, 2002). Much research has been conducted to find solution to improve productivity in agriculture especially poultry production, but in fact, those farmers who are expected to be the end users utilize very few research results. The important element of any innovation transfer is the appropriate adoption of such technology without any hitch. Emperically, researchers including: Onyenwaku (1988); Iwueke (1989); Mijinadadi and Njoku (1998) have investigated factors related to the adoption of improved technology and they found that technology adoption was related to (1) farmers characteristics such as age, level of education on social and marital status, (2) characteristics of the farm, in term of farm size, location and credit. (3) Characteristics of innovation itself in terms of relative advantage,

2 306 O.A. OLANIYI, I.O. ADESIYAN AND R.A. AYOADE compatibility, complexity, durability and communicability and (4) characteristics of the change agents in terms of personal characteristics techniques of communication and amount of participation obtained. Objective of the Study The general objective of the study was to assess the constraints to utilization of poultry production technology in Saki zone of Oyo State. Specific Objectives The following objectives were developed to guide the investigation. These include to: (i) describe the personal characteristics of the poultry farmers in the study area. (ii) determine the level of Awareness of poultry production technology by the respondents. (iii) identify the sources of information available to poultry farmers on poultry production technology in the study area. (iv) examine constraints affecting utilization of poultry production technology. (v) determine relationships, if any between selected variables and constraint to utilization. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY The study was carried out in Saki zone located in Oyo North of Oyo State. The study area consists of six Local Government Areas. These are Iwajowa, Kajola, Atisbo, Itesiwaju, Saki East and Saki West Local Government Areas. The sampling method used was multistage sampling technique. The first stage involved a purposively sampling of four local government areas, these are, Atisbo, Itesiwaju, Saki East and Saki west Local Government Areas based on population of poultry farmers. The second stage involved a simple random selection of 30 respondents from each local government area. Making a total of 120 respondents selected for the study. Only 108 responses were found to be useful for the data analysis. The survey instrument was structured and validated interviewed schedule. The survey instrument contained four sections. Section one consisted of questions regarding to poultry farmers characteristics, section two inquired about awareness of poultry production technology while section three asked about information sources used by poultry farmers and section four requested information on constraints to utilization of poultry production technology. Descriptive statistics (frequency counts and percentages) inferential statistics (Pearson correlation) were used to analyze the data collected. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION A. Personal Characteristics of Poultry Farmers (i) Age: The result of the analysis shows that more than one- third (34.3%) of the respondents were between the ages of years, 29.6% were between 36-45, 25.9% were 46 or older and 10.2% were under 25 years of age(table 1). The age modal class is years. It could be inferred from this result that there is high percentage of youths (under 40 years) among the poultry farmers. This age distribution among farmers suggests high level of vitality for agricultural activities and play central role in productive enterprises (Durston, 1996). (ii) Marital Status: over one half of the respondents (57.3%) were married while 25.0% were single and others 17.7% were either Divorced/Widowed or separated respectively (Table 1). The implication of this finding is that majority of the respondents were married, who are considered to be responsible and rational in taking decisions. (iii) Gender: majority (61.1%) of the respondents were male while 38.9% were female (Table 1). This result showed that high percentage of men involved in poultry production than women. This could be as a result of drudgery nature, physical and energy demand as well as capital-intensive nature of investment required by poultry production, which discouraged women. (iv) Education: Table 1, further revealed that there is high level of education among the respondents as 94.4% had one form or the other formal education ranging from adult literacy to tertiary education. This showed that majority of the respondents are literate. The relative high level of literacy is expected to enhance innovativeness of farmers. (v) Poultry Size: Close of half (42.6%) of the respondents keeps between birds, 30.6% under keeps 500 birds and 26.8% had poultry size

3 CONSTRAINTS TO UTILIZATION OF POULTRY PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY AMONG FARMERS IN OYO STATE, NIGERIA and over. This result indicated that majority of the poultry farmers belong to small scale category. This agreed with the classification of Omotosho and Ladele (1988), which classified. Small scale poultry farmers as drawing up to 1,000 birds. Table 1: Frequency distribution of respondents according to personal characteristics Variables Frequency Percentage Age (years) Under and above Marital Status Single Married Divorced Widowed Separated Gender Male Female Education No formal education Adult literacy Primary school Secondary school Higher education Poultry Size Under 500 birds birds and over B. Level of Awareness of Poultry Production Technology Farmers were asked to indicate their awareness of poultry production technology. Six recommended technologies were made available for the farmers to indicate their level of awareness out of two options of Yes or No for each of six recommended practices. The result of the analysis presented in table 2 shows that farmers have high awareness for all the recommended technologies as 82.4% of the farmers indicated awareness of improved poultry breeds, 82.4% claimed the awareness of improved feeding, 78.8% vaccination, 70.4% debeaking, 88.9% control of pests and diseases and 64.8% of the respondents claimed the awareness of deworming. Though there is high level of awareness of technology but Roger and Shoemaker (1977) however cautioned on the use of awareness to determine adoption of innovation in that it is not always certain that farmers who are aware of innovation will adopt. Table 2: Distribution of respondents according to awareness of poultry production technology Awareness Technology Yes No Improved poultry breeds 89 (82.4) 19 (17.6) Improved feeding 89 (82.4) 19 (17.6) Vaccination 85 (78.8) 23 (21.3) Debeaking 76 (70.4) 32 (29.6) Control of pests and diseases 96 (88.9) 12 (11.1) Deworming 70 (64.8) 38 (36.6) (parentheses indicates percentages) C. Farmers Sources of Information The findings of this study revealed that farmers obtained information on poultry technology from various sources ranging from interpersonal to mass media. About half (49.1%) of the sampled farmers indicated extension agents/veterinary doctors as their major source of information on poultry technology; this is followed by Radio/Television (16.7%), contact farmers/family members (11.1%), friends/ neighbour (10.1%) and Newspapers (13.0%) (Table 3). From this result it could be inferred that extension agents/veterinary doctors serves as the main source of information to the farmers on poultry production technology. This finding is similar to the findings of Adekoya et al, (2000), Mohammed and Waneso, (1993) who reported that extension agents were the major source of information used by farmers. Table 3: Sources of information on poultry production technology Sources of information FrequencyPercentage Contact farmers Extension agents/ Veterinary Doctors Radio/ Television Friends/ Neighbours Newspapers D. Constraints to Utilization of Poultry Production Technology Sampled poultry farmers were asked to rate the constraints to utilization of poultry technology on a 3 point of scale of severe, = 3 moderate = 2 and Mild = 1. The result of the analysis presented

4 308 O.A. OLANIYI, I.O. ADESIYAN AND R.A. AYOADE in table 4 revealed the constraints to utilization of poultry production technology in declining order of severity as farmers rated Access to capital (65.0%) as most severe followed by inadequate extension contact (55.0%), inadequate information (27.5%). Inadequate input supply (15.0%) and marketing of products. (11.2%). Table 4: Constraints to utilization of poultry technology Constraints Severe Moderate Mild Rank Inadequate 44 (55.0) 30 (37.5) 6 (7.5) 2nd extension agents contact Inadequate 52 (65.0) 19 (23.8) 9 (11.2) 1st access to capital Inadequate 12 (15.0) 30 (37.5) 38 (47.5) 4th input supply Marketing of 9 (11.2) 37 (46.3) 34 (42.5) 5th products Inadequate 22 (27.5) 46 (57.5) 12 (15.0) 3rd information (Parentheses indicates percentages) E. Relationship Between Selected Variables and Constraints to Utilization of Poultry Production Technology Hypothesis was set based on the objectives of the study to test relationship between selected variables and constraints to utilization of poultry production technology. This was carried out using Pearson correlation. {Age (r = , p<0.05), Awareness (r= , p<0.05), information source (r= 0.445, p<0.05). and education (r=-0.515, p<0.05) } The results of the analysis showed that age, awareness of technology and education were negatively related with constraints with education only being significant while information sources was positively and significantly related to constraints. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS The findings of this study have shown that poultry farmers were able bodied, still young with modal class age of years who are married and mostly males with high level of education. The farmers are small-scale producers rearing between birds. The level of awareness of poultry production technology by the farmer was very high especially control of pest and diseases. Farmers sources of information were mostly extension agents/veterinary doctors. The major constraints to utilization of poultry production technology include each access to capital and inadequate extension agents contact. The results of the analysis showed that age, awareness of technology and education were negatively related with constraints with education only being significant while information sources was positively and significantly related to constraints. Based on these findings, should be encouraged to form cooperative societies in order to acquire loan for the poultry farmers and inputs at subsidized rate. This will have a lot to do with increase in production from small scale to large scale. Also, frequency of extension contact with the farmers with adequate information on new technology should be encouraged among the extension agents. Also the use of mass media should be intensified upon by the farmers, in order to access needed information. REFERENCES Adekoya, A.E and Ajayi, A. J.: An Assessment of farmers Awareness and practices of land Management Techniques in Iddo Local Government Area of Oyo State. Journal of Environmental Extension, 1(1): (2000). Durston, J.: Background papers: Comparative International analysis of Rural Youth policy in Developing countries: coping with diversity change. pp In: Expert Consultation on Extension Rural Youth Programmes and Sustainable Development. FAO, Rome (1996). Federal Office of Statistics (FOS): Population Figures. FOS Publication., Lagos (1996). FAO: Livestock for Food, Income, Employment and Sustainable Agriculture. FAO Animal Production and Health Division, Rome Italy (1993). Iwueke, C.C.: Adoption Behaviour of farmers towards Yam Minisett technique in Imo State, Nigeria. Paper presented as the 25th Annual conference of Agricultural Science Society of Nigeria Federal University of Technology, Owerri, Sept 5-6 (1989). Mijinadadi, N.B and Njoku, J. E.: Adoption of New Farm Technology by agricultural cooperatives Rice Societies in Kano, Nigeria-International Journal of Development Technology, 3: (1985). Mohammed, I. and Waneso, T.J.: Analysis of sources of farm Information: A case study of Western Zone of Plateau State Agricultural Development Programme. Nigerian Journal of Rural Extension and Development, 1(2 and 3): (1993) Ojo, S. O.: Productivity and Technical Efficiency of Poultry Egg Production. International Journal of Poultry Science, 2(6): (2003).

5 CONSTRAINTS TO UTILIZATION OF POULTRY PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY AMONG FARMERS IN OYO STATE, NIGERIA 309 Oladele, I. O.: Farmers Feedback on Pig Production Technology in Kwara State, Nigeria. Livestock for Rural Development retrieved from: www. cipav.org.co/irrd/irrd 14/5/olad 145.htm October, 2004 (2002). Omotosho, O. A. and Ladele, A. A.: Management Problems in Large-scale poultry business in Nigeria. FAMAN Journal, 3: (1988) Onyenwaku, C. E.: Rural Development through stimulating the adoption of improved farm practices among farmers in Imo State. Pp In: Critical issues in Rural Development U. M. Igbozurike (Ed.)..Karto Press, Owerri Nigeria (1988). Roger, E. M. and Shoemaker, F. F.: Communication of Innovation: A Cross-cultural Approach. Free Press of Glancoe, New York (1971).